Separating fact from fiction regarding EVs

By David Booth, National Post

Originally published: July 12, 2012

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Be still my trembling heart: The Coda electric car has a range of 142 kilometres.

I never fail to be amazed at the bafflegab that continues to surround the electric vehicle. One part proselytizing, another blind optimism and with just a soupçon of quiet desperation thrown in for good measure, the hype surrounding the EV makes separating fact from fiction quite challenging. Or, as my dear old dad would say, “It sure is getting deep around here.”

Indeed, floating around the blogosphere for just one hour brought forth the following quandaries. Bradely Berman of The New York Times tested the first Coda electric vehicle to hit North American shores. Coda is a California-based, Chinese-sourced electric vehicle automaker that recently received a 142-kilometre range rating by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That may not sound like much compared with some of the claims that have been bandied about, but the EPA has a tougher rating system than the manufacturers and Berman says the Coda’s rating beats that of even the Nissan Leaf.

The Coda, however, breaks no new ground. Its extended range was achieved the old-fashioned way, by installing an even more ginourmous battery, in this case, a 395-kilogram behemoth rated at 31 kilowatt-hours (the Leaf makes do with 24 kW-h). Even on a 240-volt quick-charge system, the Coda will require almost five hours to recharge. Lord knows how long it will take on a typical 110-volt circuit.

But that’s not why I am referencing the article. In building the Coda’s bonafides as a practical vehicle, Berman (the editor of HybridCars.com and a Nissan Leaf owner) tells of taking his wife and two teenagers to Bolinas Beach, about 40 kilometres north of the Golden Gate Bridge. “We made that drive, a [127-km] round trip from our home in Berkeley, in comfort, using the Coda’s ample trunk to stow our gear.”

Now, out of context, this assertion may seem innocent enough, but let me assure you that Berman meant there to be an “even” in front of that claim as if we were to be impressed with the Coda’s grand accomplishment. Indeed, his 127-km sojourn was one of the “trips that I would never take in the leased Nissan Leaf I usually drive.”

This then is the progress that electric vehicles promise: After 100 years of gasoline-fuelled go-anywhere-any-time-we-want-motoring, if we switch to the greener-than-thou electric car, we can “even” travel as far as 40 km from our home base. Be still my trembling heart; I, too, want to sign up for a $38,145 automobile (without cruise control) that can make it all the way from my home in Markham, Ont., to downtown Toronto and back without even having to stop for a five-hour recharge. Whoopee!

What’s perhaps even more interesting is that Autoblog.com reports that the U.S. Department of Energy’s secretary, Steven Chu, recently postulated that a $25,000, 225-km electric car might be here within the next 10 years. Now, many of you will be again surprised, since, if you’ve been reading some manufacturer’s claims, you thought the 225-km EV was already here. But, again, he’s using EPA figures, probably more realistic than automakers’ optimistic — let’s just call them what they are, which is B.S. — ratings.

Nonetheless, it’s worth examining that statement because what he’s saying is that you will, if 10 years of concentrated development goes without a glitch, be able to travel 225 km (and then, of course, require a lengthy recharge) in an electric putt-putt that will still cost as much as a current Toyota Camry, air conditioning and automatic transmission and all.

But the plot thickens even more. Contrast the U.S. government’s seemingly modest goals with those of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s assertion that, by 2032, just 10 years beyond Chu’s prediction that EVs will attain that 225-km real-world range, “more than half of new cars manufactured will be fully electric.” Of course, Musk is the same evangelical who once stated, “We won’t stop until all cars are electric,” but nonetheless, it’s difficult to mesh Chu’s rather modest predictions with Musk’s hubris.

Musk’s optimism would seem to be misplaced since U.S. sales of Nissan’s Leaf — the very face of the EV movement — are tanking. Chevrolet’s extended-range Volt, after a slow start in 2012, is dramatically outselling Nissan’s electric-only Leaf in the United States. Indeed, U.S. sales of the Leaf were down 69% in June compared with the same period last year and year-to-date sales of the Nissan are down almost 20%. The same applies across the pond where Europe’s top-selling EV is Opel’s Ampera, the more attractive continental cousin to our Chevrolet Volt. Blather all you want that the Volt is not a pure EV, but the Ampera/Volt drives electrically and emissions-free most of the time, while its range-extending gasoline motor gives the electrified Chevy the practicality of a hybrid.

In fact, further hybrid/extended-range EV successes might actually threaten the sales of pure electric vehicles. The more successful hybrid technology becomes at reducing fuel economy and emissions, the more redundant EVs become. After all, who but a truly dedicated fanatic is going to opt for a much compromised short-range electric vehicle if automakers can get hybrids down to a real-world three-litres-per-100-km fuel economy with sharply reduced C02 emissions?